Results tagged “PRQ Internet” from WikiLeak

Apologies for the hiatus in blogging about the WikiLeakS.org soap opera, there are plenty of better things to do with limited resources.

We cannot be bothered to remember why the WikiLeakS.org front end web server was no longer hosted by PRQ Internet in Stockholm, leading to the use of dodgy Russian "bulletproof hosting" / cyber crime friendly ISP, whilst the main website ended up at WikiLeakS.ch, with the help of the pan-European Pirate Party (a genuine political party representing a minority of IT literate voters).

There were also experiments with Cloud Hosting suppliers like Amazon EC2 in Ireland and OVH in France, but WikiLeakS.org broke their terms of service and / or they succumbed to political pressure.

Whether the actual backend server(s) are still hosted by another Swedish ISP Bahnhof in a former nuclear war shelter is unclear.

However, WikiLeakS.org website and email system now appears to be back with PRQ Internet again, the ISP which hosted them during the dangerous-internet-freedom attack through the US Federal Court system, on their US Domain Name registrar, by the Swiss private bank Bank Julius Baer.

IP address: 88.80.2.31
Host name: wikileaks.org

Alias:
wikileaks.org
88.80.2.31 is from Sweden(SE) in region Scandinavia

The return to PRQ Internet makes WikiLeakS.org less resistant to attacks on the DNS providers through the legal system or through Denial of Service attacks, since they only currently list the USA based DynaDot name servers:

ns2.dynadot.com [50.112.108.69]
ns1.dynadot.com [50.112.107.96]

Compare this to wikileaks.ch, which sports multiple DNS servers in multiple legal jurisdictions:

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The WikilLeaks.org whistleblower website webservers etc (apart from the various "cover name" DNS entires around the world) is mostly hosted at PRQ Internet in Stockholm, Sweden.

The WikiLeaks.org editorial activists are happy enough to publish uploaded documents, many of which, especially copies of old US Military equipment manuals or intelligence reports etc. do not meet their stated publication criteria of:

Unless otherwise specified the document described here:

Was first publicly revealed by Wikileaks working with our source.

At that time was classified, confidential, censored or otherwise withheld from the public.

Is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance.

Any questions about this documents veracity are noted. Fewer than 0.1% of documents that pass initial triage fail subsequent analysis (typically developing world election material).

The summary is approved by the editorial board.

Therefore it is interesting that there is no mention on WikiLeakS.org, of a current attempt by to legally threaten and censor a Swedish blogger Henrik Alexandersson based partly in Belgium, by Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA), the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment, their equivalent of the US National Security Agency or of the UK's GCHQ.

This story about a leak of secret intelligence information, is , like most of the similar material on WikiLeaks, several years old, and in this case involves a partial list of names, passport numbers, company names, and fax numbers of mostly Swedish citizens and companies with business offices in Russia.

The Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment FRA that has made the headlines last month with its law on spying on all communication, has recently announced that it has reported a blogger to the Chancellor of Justice for distributing what they consider classified material proving the Agency was spying on Swedes starting with 1996.

Henrik Alexandersson is the name of the blogger that criticized the new FRA surveillance law. He published two lists of FRA's alleged classified material on his blog. The first document is a list of 103 Swedish citizens that were under surveillance in the early 90's for having contacts with Russia. The other publication is a list of connections between Russian and Swedish corporations from 1996, which may imply that FRA was illegally listening to cable bound traffic.

According to FRA's director-general Ingvar Åkesson all surveillance material regarding personal acts are destroyed after 18 months, although these documents imply that this isn't the fact.

Does anyone imagine that these businesses were unaware that the Russian authorities would be snooping on their telecommunications ?

Is should hardly be a surprise that the FRA would also be keeping such phone numbers under surveillance.

This story also has to be seen against the background of the draconian new communications snooping legislation which has recently been forced through the Swedish Parliament, on behalf of the FRA, despite widespread opposition.

This UK or US or Russian or Chinese style "snoop on all foreigners with impunity" legislation could have implications for anyone accessing the WikiLeakS.org servers in Stockholm, to upload leaked documents, to publish discussions or analyses, or just to read what others have published.

Some Questions:

Why has WikiLeakS.org has not joined in with the Streisand Effect evident in the Swedish language political blogosphere, where many people are mirroring copies of Henrik Alexandersson's articles and document image scans ?

Is it simply a language barrier problem ? There are very few Swedish language pages on WikiLeakS.org currently.

Is it a lack of awareness of WikiLeakS.org in Sweden generally ?

Is it a lack of trust in WikiLeakS.org by the Swedish political blogosphere ?

Or are the WikiLeakS.org core activists refusing to publish these particular leaks, which might involve the PRQ Internet server hosting facility in Stockholm being dragged into a legal fight with the FRA and the Swedish Government, which they are unlikely to win, and which result in Police raids on the server hosting facility, as happened when it was used for the far less sensitive legal / illegal Copyright disputes over The Pirate Bay bit torrent sharing systems which used to be hosted there in the past ?

Surely the WikiLeaks.org servers are a prime intelligence and communications traffic data surveillance target for the Swedish FRA and other agencies ?

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About this blog

This blog here at WikiLeak.org (no "S") discusses the ethical and technical issues raised by the WikiLeakS.org project, which is trying to be a resource for whistleblower leaks, by providing "untraceable mass document leaking and analysis".

These are bold and controversial aims and claims, with both pros and cons, especially for something which crosses international boundaries and legal jurisdictions.

This blog is not part of the WikiLeakS.org project, and there really are no copies of leaked documents or files being mirrored here.

Email Contact

Please feel free to email us your views about this website or news about the issues it tries to comment on:

LeakDirectory.org

Now that the WikiLeakS.org project is defunct, so far as new whistleblower are concerned, what are the alternatives ?

The LeakDirectory.org wiki page lists links and anonymity analyses of some of the many post-wikileaks projects.

There are also links to better funded "official" whistlblowing crime or national security reporting tip off websites or mainstream media websites. These should, in theory, be even better at protecting the anonymity and security of their informants, than wikileaks, but that is not always so.

New whistleblower website operators or new potential whistleblowers should carefully evaluate the best techniques (or common mistakes) from around the world and make their personal risk assessments accordingly.

Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Dissidents

The WikiLeakS.org Submissions web page provides some methods for sending them leaked documents, with varying degrees of anonymity and security. Anybody planning to do this for real, should also read some of the other guides and advice to political activists and dissidents:

Please take the appropriate precautions if you are planning to blow the whistle on shadowy and powerful people in Government or commerce, and their dubious policies. The mainstream media and bloggers also need to take simple precautions to help preserve the anonymity of their sources e.g. see Spy Blog's Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers - or use this easier to remember link: http://ht4w.co.uk

WikiLeakS Twitter feeds

The WikiLeakS.org website does not stay online all of the time, especially when there is a surge of traffic caused by mainstream media coverage of a particularly newsworthy leak.

Recently, they have been using their new Twitter feeds, to selectively publicise leaked documents to the media, and also to report on the status of routing or traffic congestion problems affecting the main website in Stockholm, Sweden.

N.B.the words "security" or "anonymity" and "Twitter" are mutually exclusive:

Campaign Button Links

Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."